


Remember

by bluestbluetoeverblue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Bucky Barnes Recovering, M/M, Memories, PTSD, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, referenced homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 21:47:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestbluetoeverblue/pseuds/bluestbluetoeverblue
Summary: Bucky comes home to try to figure out who he is. Some of what he remembers doesn't match Steve's story.





	Remember

There was a time before the table, that much Bucky knows. He can feel the absence in his brain where that time used to be, but the only memories that come to him while he jumps around Europe are of his own violence. For two years he finds a new city to squat in every few weeks, not speaking to anyone, only watching and trying to find something about himself that isn’t artificial. He reads about Captain America in the papers and feels...something. Something about the American hero keeps his attention, and he knows that he knew him before. The closest thing to a memory, though, is a fleeting sense of cold that resonates deep in his bones and once, in the early haze of being half-awake, a hand reaching out.

Bucky knows that the person he was before is dead. He will never be that person again, but if learning about who he was can lessen the chaos in his head, he is willing to learn. And he understands that Captain America is the key to doing it. So he goes to New York.

He shows up in the city with nothing more than a museum booklet worth of information. He and Steve Rogers grew up here, then they were soldiers, then he died. Simply being in New York brings nothing back. There is no sense of nostalgia, probably because the city has changed as much as he has.

Steve is shocked to find him in his apartment, but Bucky takes it as a good sign that he doesn’t immediately draw a weapon.

“Buck?” Steve’s voice is soft, and Bucky’s brow creases. He doesn’t know how to do this. The two stand in the dark apartment in silence, each unsure of who they are dealing with. Finally, Bucky says the only thing he can think of.

“I want to remember.”

***

The museums say that they were close, but Bucky is still surprised at how easily Steve accepts him into his life. Without any hint of hesitation, without the two even saying much, Bucky is given the spare room to stay in. Steve acts as if everything is normal, as if the last time they were in the same place Bucky hadn’t been trying to kill him. He just goes about his normal routines, speaking to the other as if they are roommates.

“We lived together once. Before the war.” Steve is making breakfast when he says it. He turns to push a pile of scrambled eggs onto a plate with the spatula and gives Bucky a curious look. “It was the cheapest apartment in Brooklyn and had drafts and holes everywhere.”

Bucky studies the plate of food in front of him, no longer hungry. He searches for the memory. Then for any image, any at all. All he can think of is empty space with white noise. His brain is overheating.

“I don’t remember,” he growls. Steve is frozen watching him. His face is serious, concerned, but unafraid. Bucky can’t help the anger in his voice and on his own face. He is filled with a familiar rage.

Steve doesn’t mention the past again. He talks about what to make for dinner, whether or not he wants to find a new couch (the apartment was furnished by SHIELD, and he says it feels like a homebase but not a home), something Natasha said that day that made him laugh or cringe, how much he hates the media. Bucky mostly listens because he doesn’t have anything to say. There is a familiarity with Steve, but most days it still feels odd living with a stranger. But being alive feels odd to Bucky, so he accepts it.

He is sitting on his bed one day doing nothing, staring at nothing in particular, not thinking much—a habit that seems to make Steve nervous, so he tries to only do it in his room. The memory is unprompted, and it isn’t as explosive or momentous as Bucky had expected. This is not a flashback with beating hearts and bloody knives and dead eyes. It is a memory, soft and easy, and once it is there, he can’t believe it had ever left his head.

A woman—no, a girl. She was shorter than him, but strongly built with dark brown hair that hit just past her shoulders. She was laughing at him, but there was no noise. She was saying something with a smile that reached her eyes. Her hand was on his shoulder, then he felt himself leaning down, wrapping his arms around her, and swirling her in a circle. She smells like honey and summer sidewalks. Bucky realizes that this is not one memory but a patchwork quilt of them. The girl jumping rope, grabbing him from behind, yelling at him in a narrow hallway before slamming a door, holding him tight in a way he knew was goodbye.

He doesn’t know what to do at first. The images are there so easily that he sits and goes through them for a moment before finally getting up. He finds Steve reading a newspaper in the living room and pauses in the doorway. He watches Steve’s eyes scan the paper as he waits, motionless.

“Who was Rebecca?”

Steve looks up, not startled but clearly unaware of his presence before that moment. Bucky has a tendency to exist soundlessly and move through the apartment like a spy behind enemy lines. He watches Steve's eyes widen, cautious excitement blooming on his face. He folds the paper and sets it down, sliding forward where he sits.

“Your sister.”

Bucky sits in the chair across from him and thinks this through. When he tries to remember having parents, nothing comes to him—it will, in time, and he will almost wish he couldn’t remember—but a sister feels right.

“I loved her,” Bucky says, almost a question. Steve nods.

“You used to write her every week during the war, even when there wasn’t anything good to write about. You made up good news for her, you told me once, so she wouldn’t worry about you.”

“Is she…?”

“She died a few years ago, lung cancer, I think.” Steve’s expression is gentle, and he holds his hands loosely together. His eyes don’t leave Bucky. “She was married, and her kids live in Philadelphia.”

Bucky closes his eyes. He tries to remember writing the letters, but can instead only recall her smile, standing beneath an open fire hydrant one August, letting the water come down and soak her dress.

“Tell me about her,” he says, and Steve does. They sit for an hour, and Steve tells him everything he can remember about Rebecca Barnes. Afterwards, she is etched into Bucky’s memory, more than an image. She is warm and a force of energy. But her voice escapes him.

***

The memories come slowly after that. Sometimes triggered by an image or sound, sometimes of their own accord. They are mostly small things, inconsequential and unhelpful in Bucky’s desire to know who he was. A burning cigarette butt, a dark brick alley, the way the sun rose over the docks. Sometimes, there are no images, only information that is there without warning, as if he had asked for it.

“Your mother was a nurse,” he says one day, without meaning to. He hadn’t been thinking of her, hadn’t been thinking about anything, really. They are sitting on the roof on the first sunny day for weeks, watching the city below when the thought is there at the front of his brain.

“It was TB,” Bucky continues, and Steve nods, watching him. “I moved in after she died.” He stares at the ground, trying to work out something in his head. There are more details, but they are too cloudy to distinguish. He looks at Steve instead, who gives a small smile.

“I wasn’t the best at taking care of myself after she was gone, and you had always been around to do that anyway. You said I was going to drink myself to death if you didn’t move in.”

There is something else that Steve isn’t saying, and Bucky feels him holding back.

***

“Do you want me to bring you anything?” Steve asks, throwing a few last minute items into his gym bag. Bucky shakes his head, still focused on the book he is reading. Senses forever alert, he knows that Steve is in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and will grab his keys off the table before leaving through the front door, which he always locks behind him. Bucky keeps reading, even though the book isn’t particularly interesting.

“I’m getting coffee with Nat after. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you wanted to come?” Steve pauses next to the front door. Bucky shakes his head, and Steve refocuses his attention on his bag. “I’ll bring you a scone or something, then.”

Bucky remembers for the first time that chocolate pastries are his favorite.

“You mind doing the dishes today?” Steve asks last minute as he starts out the door.

“Sure, doll.”

Bucky doesn’t hear the door close. He looks up from his book at Steve, who is staring at him, halfway into the hall, hand on the doorknob. Bucky reruns the conversation quickly in his head. Why did he say that? Steve’s face is pink as he finally throws back a thanks and closes the door behind him.

***

His first memories of Steve are of a much smaller him, always bloody and bruised. He finds him behind buildings and in the park and takes him home. It is refreshing to remember blood that wasn’t spilled by his own hand.

When he wakes up on the Fourth of July, he feels a warm summer night spent on a roof. He can feel the humid air and the blanket they are sitting on, knows that Steve is beside him as he stares up at the fireworks lighting the sky. _They’re for you_ , he feels himself say to the boy beside him. Steve’s shoulder leans against his.

He wants to follow Steve to the roof that night because the idea of recreating a memory seems like the next step in all this. If he used to sit and watch fireworks with his friend, then it feels important to do so now. But the first crackling pop sets him on edge, and he claims to be too tired. Steve’s disappointment is barely visible, hidden behind an understanding smile. Bucky spends the night in his room, shaking at the memories that the noise outside thrusts him back into.

The nightmares are neither worse nor better than they were before he came. He still wakes unsure of where or who he is, his heart pounding. He lays shaking on the mattress afterwards, eyes looking up, each image from the dream replaying in detail in his mind. He has a particularly bad one a few months after moving in. He is sitting up, breathing heavy, staring at his clean hands when Steve bursts in the door. His eyes sweep the room before they land on Bucky, who is still shaking.

“You were screaming,” Steve says as his expression shifts from prepared to worried. He stands in the doorway in pale blue pajama pants and a white t-shirt, hair tousled from sleep. Bucky has no words, no voice to explain. He sits there instead, clenching his metal fist. “Nightmares?” Steve asks. Bucky gives an almost imperceptible nod.

Steve approaches slowly and sits on the edge of the bed with caution. Bucky’s breathing is still labored, but he manages to look up at the other.

“You don’t have to tell me about it, but you can.” Steve’s voice is soft, and Bucky can almost remember spending all night sitting on his bed talking when they were kids. The fog in his head is too thick for the feeling to come through completely, but it provides a sense of safety nonetheless.

“It was a family,” Bucky says in a voice like gravel, his throat tight as he describes the forty-year-old assassination in detail. Steve never shows any sign of alarm or emotion. He just listens.

Bucky has no intention of making this a habit, but the next time he wakes up covered in a cold sweat, he finds himself walking mindlessly to Steve’s room. The only way he can break the spell of the dream is to get it all out. Steve is always awake instantly, ready to take the burden. He never mentions any of the stories again and doesn’t treat Bucky any different in the morning.

He jolts awake after falling asleep on the couch, and Steve, who has dozed off across from him, wakes. Bucky nods when Steve asks if it was a nightmare.

“This one I don’t understand,” Bucky says. He feels less trapped in his body this time. The images of the dream are less solid than any he has ever had, and they come in waves instead of like a cold movie reel. “I was shooting from behind a barricade, but I wasn’t alone.” _Barnes!_ he heard in the distance, and looked up to see a redheaded man many years his senior make eye contact before covering him. “We were fighting someone…” He had fought too many battles and couldn’t distinguish this from the rest. His memory was all dirt, gun barrels, and running. “I think you were there.”

“Me?” Steve asks. Bucky runs his hands over his face, trying to remember the dream. His nightmares were normally painted behind his eyes, always there to remind him of what he had done, but this one was already disappearing. Steve had run out before him, he was sure that was the blonde blur. He remembered his breath hitching as a bullet pierced through the figure’s shoulder, the pounding of his heart as he shot after him before waking up.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says finally. “It’s all jumbled.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says. He sits up and switches on a lamp that fills the room with a yellow glow. A new puzzle piece is suddenly available in Bucky’s head. A warm French pub, empty save a bustling table of drunks, including him. He stands and makes his way through the deserted building, the glow of the lanterns on the walls making his cheeks warm. He opens the door to a rush of cold wind and against his body’s wishes, steps into it. Steve stands outside the door; in the shade of the night Bucky can still see the bandage on his arm. It will only take a day to heal, Bucky knows. When he steps through the door, Steve turns and smiles.

***

He doesn’t dream of the war again, but the memories are more accessible now. He remembers bits and pieces, mostly people. They normally come during the day and increase when he decides to venture outside the apartment. A fruit stand on fourteenth reminds him of stealing apples with Steve when they were twelve and thirteen. Even Brooklyn is nothing like it used to be, but being on the street allows the old city he knew to grow in his mind. He sits on a patch of grass and remembers eating deli sandwiches that they haggled the price for with Steve. He stares up at a firescape and can feel the old apartment. Unfinished floors, a mattress on the ground, mice who were as hungry as they were, and the cold. It was always cold there, and Bucky knew it had to be worse for Steve. He remembers standing in the doorway at night, watching the small blond teenager shiver in his sleep.

That night, Bucky dreams of something different: Steve’s body beside his, thin and pale, but the only other warm thing in the apartment. Bucky scoots closer, trying to provide more body heat. Steve turns into him, half-awake, a contented smile on his face. Bucky leans forward and brushes his lips against Steve’s before waking up.

Bucky opens his eyes in a panic. His body is relaxed, and he feels nothing but warmth. He lays in bed and watches the sun rise outside his window. A dream or a memory, he wonders. Either way, he doesn’t dare mention this one to Steve. It causes him nothing but confusion for the rest of the week as he tries to push the sensation out of his mind but is unable to think of much else. He can barely look at Steve. It only gets worse when the memory of an April afternoon pops into his mind:

Bucky was walking Steve home after pulling him out of a fight. The other boy had been much older than them both, but Bucky had only gotten hit once before sending him to the ground. Steve, on the other hand, had gotten roughed up before Bucky got there.

They walked up the steps to Steve’s apartment, but Sarah was taking extra shifts at the hospital. Bucky helped his friend into the bathroom and sat him roughly on the toilet. He opened the medicine cabinet and rooted around before finding some antiseptic. He sat on the edge of the bathtub, dabbing the liquid onto a clean rag angrily.

“Calm down, Buck.”

“Why should I calm down when you have a death wish,” he replied gruffly.

“I don’t have a death wish. I just want to stand up for myself. That guy was saying—”

“What?” Bucky asked when Steve trailed off. He put the bloody rag in the sink and watched his friend struggle to make eye contact.

“He said I was queer.”

“Just because he’s a jerk doesn’t mean you can take him in a fight,” Bucky said. He looked at the floor, trying to quell the waves crashing against each other inside his stomach, trying not to think about every time he had let his hand stray close to Steve’s over the years.

“But the thing is…” Bucky looked up as Steve searched for the words. “He was right. I think about boys just like I think about girls, so doesn’t that make me queer?”

He was waiting for an answer.

“How am I supposed to know?” He stood up and left the bathroom.

“So you don’t know what I’m talking about?” Steve asked, following Bucky into the kitchen.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean all these years of dragging me out of fights and us being friends and the way you always look at me,” Steve said, his voice rising.

“Looking at you how?” Bucky asked, voice matching the other boy’s.

“Like that,” Steve yelled.

Bucky clenched his jaw and looked from Steve to the ground. He dug his toe into a stain on the floor.

“Buck,” his voice was softer now, and he stepped forward. “If we’re just pals, then that’s fine. Because I don’t want you to leave. But if you feel different like I do, then I just want to know.” He took a step forward until they were inches apart. “Either way, it’s okay.” Bucky looked up then, at the dumb kid who had gotten him into so much trouble over the years. What was a little more risk at this point, because who was he kidding, he would follow that kid anywhere.

Bucky remembers closing the space between them in that drafty kitchen and leaning down to kiss him.

As the memory becomes more vivid and permanent in his mind, he grows more lost. None of this makes sense with what he knows. This can’t be true, not when he was only a few lines in the legend of Captain America, not when he has been living with Steve for months, telling him everything. This had to be a cold trick being played by his mind.

***

He doesn’t plan on going into Steve’s room when he isn’t home, but he walks by the open door and can’t help himself. There isn’t much to take in: a simple wrought iron bed, a watch and some coins and a sketchbook on the dresser, an easel in the corner of the room, a few pairs of shoes lined up by the door, a photo of Peggy taped by the window. It looks as it has every time he has been inside before.

He doesn’t mean to open the dresser drawers, but finds himself sifting carefully through the neatly folded clothes anyway. Then he flips through the sketchbook, then opens the closet. There are a few baskets at the top of the closet, none of which contain anything particularly interesting except for a small box that he opens to find a photo of him. It is the old him, of course, something out of an old military file because he is in uniform. There is clear tape wrapped over two corners. Beneath the photo are stacks of old envelopes. The dates printed besides the stamps vary, but they are all addressed to either Steve or him.

***

_Dollface,                                                                                                                                                                                 May 2, 1941_

_I know you’ll be mad at me for saying it, but I’m glad you’re not here. They talk about war back home, but this is something else. I can’t stand watching everyone kill each other. The boys are all resigned to it. They talk about anything they can to stay sane, which mostly means the girls they got waitin’ for them. They all tell me I’d be better off with someone to think of, and every time I almost laugh. It's cold all the time. When you're sitting in a trench covered in mud and can't feel your toes in your boots, it's colder than anything I've ever felt._

_Tell me about home. Anything. Everything._

_I miss you every second. You’re the last thing I think of before I go to sleep. The thing that keeps me going in the morning. Love you more than words._

_Till the end of the line._

_Bucky_

~

  
_Buck,                                                                                                                                                                                 June 1, 1941_

_You wanna hear about home but all anyone talks about here is the war. The truth is, it’s exactly like it was when you left. Kids still play on the street, and the deli a block over still serves terrible salami. The apartment is colder without you. I miss you all the time._

_I found a job, and I know what you’re gonna say, but it isn’t too much for me. I should have been on the docks with you all this time. And the guy in charge, he wanted me in particular. I feel like I might finally have a chance to make a difference with this, so please don’t worry about me._

_Saw Becca the other day. She was with your folks, so I didn’t try to stop her. Just ducked out of sight. But she smiled at me. It was a “me too” smile. I’m not the only one thinking about you out there._

_Till the end._

_S_

~

_Mr. Stars and Stripes,_

_The only bad part of you being here? No more sappy letters from home. (And that you’re somehow taller than me now.)_

_Remember that night last summer when the power went out because we couldn’t pay the bill and you wanted to try drawing me by candlelight? I didn’t tell you cause I knew you’d say it was too risky, but I ripped that page out of your book before I left. I needed something, anything to remind me of you._

_Well, Morita saw me sticking the sketch back in your book last night. I tried to talk my way out of it, but he just laughed. Said you’d have to be blind not to notice that we weren’t just pals. Guess we aren’t as inconspicuous as we thought. I’m glad they know. I’m glad you’re here._

_Anyway, I’ll see you when I get back from scouting._

_Yours,_

_Bucky_

~

 

_Bucky,                                                                                                                                                                                 February 3, 1945_

_You don’t get to do this to me._

_What am I supposed to do._

_What am I supposed to tell Rebecca._

_Come back._

~

 

_Buck,                                                                                                                                                                                 February 4, 1945_

_It was supposed to be me and you, remember?_

_Steve_

~

 

_Bucky,                                                                                                                                                                                 December 18, 2011_

_Can you believe that people don’t write letters anymore? Everything is different. I suppose I am too. They want me to be part of this world, part of a team, but I don’t know. Everyone is gone. New York is gone. I should be grateful to have made it out of the ice, but I just feel alone._

_Steve_

~

 

_Buck,                                                                                                                                                                                 June 19, 2011_

_You wouldn’t believe how different the world is now. They wrote about me in the history books, but only the version they liked. They erased so much of what happened back then._

_But Bucky, they have whole queer parades. Parades. To celebrate. It’s not all that good, but I see kids on the street who aren’t afraid to hold hands or kiss. It’s incredible, Buck. I wish more than anything that you were here to see it._

_Still yours,_

_Steve_

 

_~_

 

_Bucky,                                                                                                                                                                                 January 16, 2014_

_You were right in front of me. You might not be you right now, but you’re alive. You’re still breathing. Still fighting. I can’t not look for you. I’m coming._

_I love you. Till the end of the line._

_Steve_

*** 

“Why didn’t you tell me,” Bucky demands the second Steve walks in. Steve looks up at the abrupt confrontation with surprise as he shuts the front door behind him and sets his things down on the floor.

“Tell you what?” he asks. His voice is a perfect combination of cautious and easy as he steps into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water. His attempt at easing any tension infuriates Bucky. This calm and collected Steve is absent from every memory he has of him.

Bucky drops the stack of letters on the counter, his face hard. Steve’s eyes grow large as he takes in the envelopes.

“Bucky—”

“You should have told me.” He doesn’t let Steve finish, just turns to walk into the living room. His body has to move when he feels this full of anger. The energy is too chaotic for his mind to process anything when he stands still. “Why?” he demands.

Steve follows but gives him a few feet of space. A safe distance.

“When you came back, you weren’t the same person I lost on that train. You had no idea who I was, and I didn’t want to scare you. But then you started to remember things but never anything about us and I got scared. I didn’t want to make you feel obligated. I didn’t want to lose you all over again.”

Bucky watches Steve’s hands while he talks. He wants to be angry, but he remembers those hands in his on cold nights, tangled in his hair, grabbing his waist, reaching out towards him in the snow.

He takes a step forward, and Steve tenses ever so slightly. He reaches out slowly, taking Steve’s hand in his as gently as he can. He holds it in his metal hand, runs his other thumb over Steve’s palm.

He meets eyes with Steve, who is watching him, silent, unbreathing.

Bucky lets go of the hand. His head is still foggy, but everything makes a little bit more sense now.

“I want you to tell me what they left out of the history books.”

Steve’s eyes brighten. He opens his mouth, and like a damn breaking open, it all comes out: “We met at school when you were nine and I was eight. You stood up for me in a fight and never stopped doing it. I was small, and you tried your damnedest to protect me. We were stuck together after that. When you were seventeen I told you I was queer, and we kissed for the first time.”

“I remember that,” Bucky says in a quiet voice, and Steve stumbles for a moment, eyes resting on Bucky’s face. Then he continues.

“You moved in to take care of me after my mom died, but there were never pretenses. We had one bed, and you kept taking care of me until the war. You were the first person I ever felt that way about, and we were together until the day you died. We promised to love each other till the end of the line. I never stopped.”

A blush covers Steve’s cheeks as he finishes, breathless.

“I only remember parts,” Bucky says after a moment. “And even if I do remember, I’m not him. I’m someone else now.”

“I know.”

“I can’t be the person you loved. I still get confused a lot, but now I finally feel like something makes sense.”

“Bucky, I wanted to make this easier for you. And if you stay here, that doesn’t have to mean anything. I don’t want you to feel like you have to pretend.”

Bucky closes his eyes. He hasn’t been clear enough. Steve had always been the one that was good with words. He steps forward to close the space between them and pulls Steve into a kiss, his hands coming up to the other’s jaw.

When he pulls back, Steve is in the same position and looks lost.

“But I thought…”

Bucky grabs his hand.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to remember.”

Steve smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> xoxo
> 
> [Buy me a coffee if you enjoyed it?](https://ko-fi.com/L4L4WBXK#)


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